


give me one good reason why i should never make a change

by eversall



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mushu as a teacher!!, Mutual Pining, Pining, also li lonnie/jane but blink and you miss it, paradigm shifts?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:38:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5050585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eversall/pseuds/eversall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What the hell is your problem?” Carlos asks sadly that night, after hours of ignoring each other.<br/>“I don’t have a problem.” Jay glowers, addressing the wall next to his bed.<br/>.<br/>Somewhere in between paradigm shifts and Doug being shockingly knowledgeable, Carlos comes to accept the fact that Jay could possibly reciprocate his feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give me one good reason why i should never make a change

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, Descendants was the cutest movie ever. Filled with attractive people. And really cheesy Disney lines that I somehow ended up loving anyway?  
> ANYWAY I love all these characters. This was written really quickly in the time I was supposed to be working on my homework. OH WELL.  
> title taken from George Ezra's song Budapest. listen to it while you read this, it'll be fantastic!

It’s not that Carlos doesn’t know his mother’s legend. It’s maybe more that he hates they have to cover it in class, while he’s there, with everyone looking at him with varying degrees of pity, sympathy, and disgust. He squirms in his seat and considers whistling for Dude.

Seriously. That dog is always there when he needs him. Carlos _loves_ dogs.

“For the _love_ of great-great-grandpa Shu, who bless his soul had the most _awful_ attention span, I can’t take it! Class dismissed!” Mushu screeches shrilly. The little dragon stomps back and forth across his podium as he bangs his gong louder than should be possible. “Out, out, out!” Mushu yells at them, and Carlos doesn’t need to be told twice. He vaults out, climbing over the desks and jumping over people’s heads.

“Dog boy! Don’t be steppin’ on my desks!” Mushu cries.

.

Jay finds him face down on his bed later in the afternoon.

“Tourney practice!” he announces happily, throwing the covers off of Carlos. Carlos pouts.

“I’m so bad at tourney!” he cries. “That’s it. I’m not going. I quit.”

“Bad day?” Jay asks sympathetically. Carlos quits tourney every other week. It’s no longer big news.

“We’re going over Cruella de Vil’s reign in history.” Carlos says quietly, relenting and getting up to search for his jersey. He’s pretty decent defense. _Somebody’s_ gotta use a shield and it’s never Jay or Ben or Chad.

“Oh, you know that’s not you.” Jay says quietly, a bit awkwardly. Carlos looks at him, with his earnest eyes and his golden skin, and smiles wryly.

“I know.” He says. Some things he still can’t have, even off the Isle.

.

Anthony Tremaine joins their school in the spring, and Evie is ecstatic. Anthony is sweet and kind by Isle standards, and he and Evie have always been good friends.

“Aren’t you worried?” Carlos asks Doug, digging into his potato salad as he hides his grin. Carlos isn’t by any stretch of imagination good like the Auradon kids. He thinks a little jealousy might spice up Doug and Evie’s relationship, which has become far too boring to watch.

“About?” Doug asks distractedly, tapping his pen against his notebook.

“Um, hello? Anthony? He and Evie were like, super close back on the island. He’s pretty rich, and he’s nice too?” Carlos gestures towards where Evie and Anthony are practically glued together, talking about – oh god, _sewing_. Carlos wants to gag. What the hell is interesting about _sewing_?

“Oh please.” Doug says, not even bothering to look up from his notebook. “As if Evie would _ever_ cheat on me. Besides, I know what you’re doing, Carlos,” and here he finally looks up, and he’s grinning, “I’m not jealous. Anthony is so gay it’s surprising Chad hasn’t already gotten all up on that.”

“ _What_?” Carlos asks, shocked. Doug is – he’s supposed to be innocent and _good_.

“We’re teenagers, not nuns and monks.” Doug says, frowning.

“But you’re _good_?”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.” Doug pushes his glasses up his nose. “Being good is a choice. Being a prude is also a choice that people like Jane seem to have made.”

“Um, I thought you made that choice too.” Carlos says, staring at Doug in awe.

“No.” Doug shrugs. “I’m dating Evie and discovering a whole range of things I didn’t know were possible.”

“Oh you _dog_.” Carlos laughs. Dude perks up at that, bounding over to nuzzle Carlos.

.

“Hang on a minute.” Carlos muses absently in the mostly empty locker room after tourney practice the next day. “If Chad gets all up on any guy who’s gay, why haven’t I gotten an invitation yet?” There’s the sound of someone falling against a locker and a muttered curse.

“Oh boy.” Carlos mutters, and sure enough Chad pokes his head around the row of lockers.

“Are you _offering_ , de Vil?” he asks prissily.

“Not in a million years.” Carlos says snidely.

“We didn’t even know if you guys were okay with things like that on the Isle.” Chad says after a moment, coming into view with a towel slung around his hips.

“Oh, we _are_.” Carlos leers, eyes raking over Chad’s body. Carlos appreciates the male body in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and even if Chad isn’t his type there’s something very aesthetically pleasing about the slender chest and the dip of Chad’s abs.

“Pervert.” Chad sniffs. Carlos grins.

“Am I interrupting something?” Ben asks in a strained voice from behind Carlos. Carlos turns around, holding his own towel to his waist loosely to see the prince standing there, sweaty, with Jay beside him. Jay looks angry and upset.

“No.” Chad says into the silence, when it becomes clear Carlos won’t say anything. Carlos can’t say anything, because Jay’s never looked at him like that.

.

“What the hell is your problem?” Carlos asks sadly that night, after hours of ignoring each other.

“I don’t have a problem.” Jay glowers, addressing the wall next to his bed.

“Are you upset about the gay thing? I thought you knew.” Carlos says softly, looking down at his pillow. Jay is gorgeous in the moonlight, his hair in a messy bun and his pajama bottoms slung low around his hips. Carlos can’t keep looking at that or he’ll drown somehow. Metaphorically.

“I did.” Jay says after a while. Carlos doesn’t say anything else, because Jay turns onto his side and shuts his light off. His heart hurts in his chest and all the soul-searching of the past year still doesn’t help him prepare for how utterly wretched he feels, like someone is wringing him out to dry and stretching him thinly over his emotions.

.

“It’s like a paradigm shift.” Lonnie says, sitting next to Carlos at breakfast.

“A what? Is that some sort of disease?” Carlos asks. Lonnie gives him a look that Carlos has come to interpret means that she wants to smack him into the table. He doesn’t pay much attention to that, because even though Lonnie is the daughter of Mulan she’s disdainful of physical force and prefers using her words to bring people down. She’s kind of a manipulative person, which is why she and Mal are thick as thieves.

“ _No_.” she says, rolling her eyes and biting into her banana. “It’s like, you see the world one way all your life, and suddenly something changes and this whole new perspective opens up. It’s been there all along, but you never saw it because you didn’t have the right frame of mind.”

“Right.” Carlos says, sorting through the confusing concept in his head. Computers are easier to understand than Lonnie, which is why he likes his computers better than people sometimes.

“I’m telling you this,” Lonnie says, heaving an exasperated sigh, “because that’s what happens when you find that person you’ve been looking for all your life. A paradigm shift. And sometimes, because of that, you miss what’s right in front of you.” Carlos _still_ doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

“Um.” He says eloquently.

“Look, look over there.” Lonnie says, pointing at a small table near the window where the sunlight is streaming in just _so_ , highlighting the soft red of Anthony Tremaine’s hair. He’s got his chin propped up on his hands and a dreamy, sleepy look on his face, staring out the window.

One table away, Chad Charming is staring at Anthony like it’s the last time he’ll ever get to, drinking in the sight in front of him. Even Jane – poor, sweet, naïve Jane – could probably understand that Chad wants Anthony like nothing else in the world. It’s a soft, sweet moment, with the world still and quiet in the way mornings are sometimes.

“See?” Lonnie breathes out quietly next to him. “Paradigm shift.” And he kind of gets it, now, why she’s telling him this, but he can’t quite believe it yet.

.

The thing is, Carlos has always been the smallest of his friends, the youngest, and the one with the least dates lined up. He knows he’s not unattractive, not by a long shot, but he also doesn’t really feel like he’s attractive either. It doesn’t help that all his best friends looked like they stepped out of a fashion magazine.

He’d long ago give up hope that Jay would ever reciprocate his feelings. Jay is gorgeous, with his golden skin and dangerous smirk, but more importantly he’s funny and fiercely loyal. He’s more awkward than a turtle and a sloth combined. Carlos knows all of this and more, all the small things and the big things he’s learned over the years, but none of it makes a difference when Jay will never look at him as more than a younger friend.

.

“So there hasn’t been this much angst and man-pain between you and Jay since that epic heist two years ago where you thought he was abandoning you for messing up and he thought you were mad at him for putting you in danger, and I gotta say it’s kind of disheartening, so maybe fix it?” Mal says as they paint welcome posters for the new group of freshman coming in a few weeks.

“Wow Mal, are you growing a heart?” Carlos asks innocently, earning him a streak of purple paint down his cheek. He laughs.

“Really, though, it’s just not good for your skin at all to be stressed out over something so simple.” Evie sighs from where she’s perched next to them, swinging her legs and not painting at all.

“How can I fix it? I don’t know why he’s avoiding me.” Carlos muses, trying not to sound bitter. From Doug’s snort from across the table, he didn’t succeed.

“Please tell me you’re not actually serious.” Mal says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You can’t  be this dense. You grew up on the _Isle_. You have some _common sense_.” Carlos looks blankly at her. “Oh for the love of- Ben!” she calls, and Ben saunters over, grinning.

“My lady, my queen, my truly terrifying partner in crime, how may I help you?” he says, sweeping into a small bow. Mal flicks him in retaliation.

“Can you find Carlos a date?” she asks him sweetly. Carlos blinks widely, like a deer caught by surprise, because _what_?

“Aren’t you dating Jay?” Ben asks, frowning. “Don’t try to make him jealous, that’s a bad tactic. Just talk to him and fix it. Team morale is suffering because you guys are having some strange lovers’ spat.”

Carlos gapes at him, speechless.

“We’re not _dating_.” He says finally, finding his voice. Ben give him a strange look.

“Sure you’re not.” Ben says smoothly, and Carlos presses a hand to his heart in wonder.

.

Carlos waits that night, pretending to be asleep in his boxers and a t-shirt as Jay sneaks in late. He hears Jay’s footsteps come near his bed, and Jay sighs lowly before the footsteps retreat back to Jay’s bed.

Carlos sits up slowly, and Jay blinks at him in the dim light.

“Ben thinks we’re dating.” He starts slowly, watching Jay’s face get paler. The older boy looks terrified suddenly. “And Lonnie was talking about paradigm shifts and trying to tell me something metaphorical using Chad and Anthony.” Jay looks away.

“I know you don’t feel the same way and it’s fine.” He growls lowly. “Just don’t throw it in my face, alright, because you can do better than hooking up with people like Chad-“

“You’re so dumb!” Carlos says, because it’s _true_. “Why would I hook up with Chad? I’ve been in love with you since I was eleven and you were just a street rat stealing from my mom.” Jay stills and looks at Carlos with wonder in his eyes.

“Please don’t give me false hope. If you – this can’t be a joke, okay?” Jay says, his voice thick. Carlos gets up and walks over to the other boy in response. Jay’s been torturing himself with this for weeks too. Carlos knew – deep down, he knew at some level that Jay wanted him too, but it's hard to admit anything nice for yourself when you aren’t used to nice things. The Isle isn’t a place for foolish young love.

But maybe you don’t need a _place_ for love. Maybe, Carlos thinks, you just need two young people to fall foolishly in love. He leans down over the sitting boy and presses his lips softly against Jay’s mouth. He doesn’t know what he’s doing – his kissing experience is limited to two girls on the Isle – but it’s dry and awkward and still perfect.

Jay makes a broken noise before he suddenly pulls Carlos down over him, opening his mouth in a deeper kiss as he goes. Suddenly there’s a tongue pressing insistently at the seam of Carlos’ lips, licking into his mouth and sending a pleasant heat through his body. Carlos breaks the kiss and presses his forehead to Jay’s  as Jay scrabbles at their shirts.

“No – idea – how – every day – tourney field, your shirt _clinging_ – you’re so beautiful, so hot, so perfect, oh-“ Jay is fiercely biting out as he runs his hands up and down Carlos’ chest, and Carlos cries out as a sharp pull to his nipple caused a pleasant frisson of _want_ up his spine. He clenches his fingers in Jay’s strong shoulders and mouths at a spot on his neck, licking and sucking and biting.

Jay is hot and unyielding beneath him, his body made of solid lines and hard muscle. Carlos doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of the way Jay grins at inopportune moments like this one, his face soft and open even as he rolls his hips relentlessly against Carlos’. This, Carlos thinks with a streak of possessiveness, is his to keep.

Jay rolls them over and Carlos goes willingly as Jay twines their fingers together. They twist against each other, the friction not enough but still too much for their teenage stamina.

“I love you.” Jay whispers against Carlos’ lips as he palms Carlos’ cock through his boxers, and Carlos comes with a strangled groan, his toes curling as Jay holds him down and kisses his muffled shouts.

“Mmmm.” Carlos hums softly as Jay continues to rock against him. He snakes a hand down and pushes Jay’s pants free, taking his cock in his hand and stroking experimentally a few times. Jay immediately comes with a shout.

They collapse into a sweaty heap, curled around each other.

“Gotta clean up.” Carlos mumbles tiredly.

“Sleep now.” Jay says softly, pressing kisses to his eyelashes, his nose, and his mouth.

.

“Are we too young for love?” Carlos asks Lonnie the next morning at breakfast, sated and happy. He’d woken up leisurely with Jay and traded brief handjobs before Jay had fallen back asleep and he’d come down to eat.

“No.” Lonnie muses, looking at Jane in what she apparently thinks passes for subtle. “Paradigm shifts, remember?”

Chad and Anthony are sitting together this morning, and from his vantage point Carlos can see Anthony smirking slyly as he runs his foot up Chad’s ankle. Mal and Ben are off doing something bound to get Ben in trouble, and Evie is setting up the first part of a surprise for Doug’s birthday. And upstairs in his bed is a beautiful boy with the brightest laugh and the most mischievous grin waiting to start the rest of their life together – something new and full of possibility.

Right, Carlos thinks, paradigm shift.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: now you can find me on [ tumblr!!! ](http://eversall.tumblr.com/) i know, you're SO excited *sarcasm*


End file.
